Judge weighs fate of Delco gunman

WEST CHESTER — The gunman in a violent home invasion robbery in East Goshen asked the Common Pleas Court judge who will sentence him to show some leniency when it comes to handing down the punishment he said he knows he deserves.

“I know I did wrong,” Anton Tyrone Johnson said as he stood before Senior Judge Ronald Nagle and pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery, conspiracy, and a firearms violation stemming from the August incident in which he and three others broke into a home and took drugs and other items at gunpoint. One of the residents in the home was shot in the hand, allegedly by Johnson.

“I’ve been through a lot,” Johnson, 43, of Brookhaven, said in a low, hushed voice, dressed in a white prison t-shirt and purple prison pants, his head shaved. “The wrong females always get me in bad situations.

But I did what I did,” he acknowledged, telling Nagle that the police and prosecutor involved in his case had been fair to him in their dealings. “I am just asking you to be merciful. I don’t want to die in jail.”

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“I understand, sir,” Nagle responded.

The overall length of Johnson’s prison term rests with whether Nagle decides to run the sentences on each of the charges against him consecutive to one another, as well as to a 10-to-20 year sentence he is currently serving for trying to run over Delaware County police officers who were attempting to take him into custody in October, when he was identified as being involved in the East Goshen robbery.

Assistant District Attorney Priya DeSouza, who is prosecuting the case against Johnson, told Nagle her office would invoke a 10-year mandatory sentence for the robbery count that includes the shooting of the victim. In the other count, Johnson faces a possible minimum sentence of between 6½ and 7½ years. Depending on Nagle’s decision on consecutive sentences, Johnson could see a minimum parole date of 2039, when he would be nearing 70 years old.

Assistant Public Defender Kathleen Boyer, representing Johnson, told Nagle that she would present evidence at his sentencing hearing about mental health issues he had suffered as a youth in an attempt to mitigate Nagle’s sentence. Boyer said she had advised Johnson that he had nothing to lose by going to trial, but that he had declined.

“He knows very well how bad the sentence could be,” she said. “This is his choice to do this.”

“It’s time to man up,” Johnson said.

According to Westtown-East Goshen police, the robbery occurred on Aug. 26 at a home in the 1300 block of Valley Drive in the Goshen Valley apartment complex off West Chester Pike.

The couple living there reported two men forced their way into their home when one was closing the door behind him after bringing in groceries from his vehicle.

One of the intruders, identified later as Johnson, was armed with a small caliber handgun and then attacked the male victim while another forced the female victim into a bedroom where he demanded money and other items. The gun was fired three times during the attack, hitting the male victim once in the hand, police said.

The intruders took money, an amount of illegal controlled substances, including Percocet and marijuana, an Xbox360 Elite gaming system, a set of car keys and duffel bag.

All three have pleaded guilty to robbery charges and are scheduled to be sentenced next week. None face the same level of punishment that Johnson does, because they have no criminal records. For Johnson his guilty plea represents a second-strike in the state’s violent crime “three strikes and you’re out” law. Should he commit another violent felony upon his release from prison, he faces a 25-years-to-life sentence.